Andrew McNutt

Professor of HCI / Visualization

I’m hiring this cycle! Check out this page for details!!

I’m an incoming assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia (starting beginning 2027). At the moment I’m at the University of Utah in the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI) and Kahlert School of Computing. I lead the HAVOC (Human and Visualization Oriented Computing) Lab, where we develop tools and theories that help us do knowledge-centered work more safely. I am the receipt of Johanna Beyer EuroVis Early Career Award, a Siebel Scholarship, as well as a number of paper awards at top visualization and HCI venues.

I’m interested in Human Computer Interaction, Visualization, and Programming Interfaces. This tangle of interests leads me to work on a range of different domains. Lately, I’ve been excited about Visualization systems, Interfaces for programming, Visualization theories, and Critical/sociotechnical perspectives. Connecting these domains is an interest in “polite” systems, that is tools that support complex assistance while still allowing you to maintain agency. More broadly, I am a fan of deserts, zines, and bicycles.

Before my current position, I was a Post Doc at University of Washington with the Interactive Data Lab. Before that I did my Ph.D. at UChicago CS where I was advised by Ravi Chugh. During my Ph.D. I was lucky to intern at Tableau Research and Microsoft Research.

News

Winter 2027: Excited to be teaching a new course at UBC this winter: CPSC_V 554M - Topics in HCI: Open Science in Vis/HCI! Check out the course website. If you are at UBC and interested in the course, you should take it!
Fall 2026: I’m moving to the University of British Columbia as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science! Excited to return the pacific northwest 🌲🌲🌲
Fall 2026: A big fall! Two full papers at VL/HCC (on JSON usability and data wranglers) and two full papers at IEEE VIS (on chart types and alternative modalities for visualization literacy), two workshop papers (on contribution statements and color discrimination), a poster, and a tutorial.
June 2026: Honored/shocked to receive the Johanna Beyer EuroVis Early Career Award for 2026!! Thanks to my network of collaborators, mentors, friends, and students who have supported me in getting here.
April 2026: Our paper on linting readmes was accepted to/presented at CHI 2026!

Publications

On Defining Chart Type Boundaries: Chang Han, Andrew McNutt, Katherine E. Isaacs, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings of IEEE VIS)
Read, Critique, or Sketch? Investigating Alternative Visualization Literacy Assessment Modalities: Zach Cutler, Lily W. Ge, Matthew Kay, Lane Harrison, Andrew McNutt, and Alexander Lex, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings of IEEE VIS)
Considering Contributor Roles in Visualization and HCI Research: Mara Solen, Wesley Willett, Andrew McNutt, IEEE BELIV
Ten Years Later: Replicating Two Color Discrimination Studies: Shadmaan Hye, Katherine E. Isaacs, Andrew McNutt, VisXVision Workshop
Trade-offs in Data Color Palette Design Tools: Shiyi He, Andrew McNutt, IEEE VIS Posters
How Wrangling Tools Shape Wrangling: A Technical Dimensions Analysis: Shiyi He, El Kindi Rezig, Paul Rosen, Andrew McNutt, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centered Computing (VL/HCC)
Reading Between the Curly Braces: On Textual Data Serialization Format Usability: Shiyi He, Zach Cutler, Andrew McNutt, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centered Computing (VL/HCC)
AnnoBench: A Benchmark for Visualization Annotation Generation: Md Rahat-uz-Zaman, Md Dilshadur Rahman, Andrew McNutt, Paul Rosen, Preprint
Same Data, Different Audiences: Using Personas to Scope a Supercomputing Job Queue Visualization: Connor Scully-Allison, Kevin Menear, Kristin Potter, Andrew McNutt, Katherine E. Isaacs, Dmitry Duplyakin, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Linting Style and Substance in READMEs: Hima Mynampaty, Nathania Josephine, Katherine E. Isaacs, Andrew McNutt, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
Literate Execution: Joseph Bond, Jacob Pake, Cristina David, Andrew McNutt, Trevor Sseguya Muwonge, Dominic Orchard, Roly Perera, PLATEAU Workshop
Towards Scalable Visual Data Wrangling via Direct Manipulation: El Kindi Rezig, Mir Mahathir Mohammad, Nicolas Baret, Ricardo Mayerhofer, Andrew McNutt, Paul Rosen, Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research
ReVISit 2: A Full Experiment Life Cycle User Study Framework: Zach Cutler, Jack Wilburn, Hilson Shrestha, Yiren Ding, Brian C Bollen, Khandaker Abrar Nadib, Tingying He, Andrew McNutt, Lane Harrison, Alexander Lex, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
AnnoGram: An Annotative Grammar of Graphics Extension: Md Dilshadur Rahman, Md Rahat-uz-Zaman, Andrew McNutt, Paul Rosen, Proceedings of IEEE VIS (Short Papers)
Teaching Critical Visualization: A Field Report: Andrew McNutt, Shiyi He, Sujit Kumar Kamaraj, Purbid Bambroo, Nastaran Jadidi, John Bovard, Chang Han, IEEE VIS Workshop on Visualization Education, Literacy, and Activities (EduVIS)
Charts and Measures: Andrew McNutt, alt.vis
The Feng Shui of Visualization: Design the Path to SUCCESS and GOOD FORTUNE: Chang Han, Andrew McNutt, alt.vis
Language-Based Dependency-Tracking for Explorables: Roly Perera, Joseph Bond, Cristina David, Andrew McNutt, Alfonso Piscitelli, LIVE Workshop
Authoring Tools for Transparent Climate Reporting: Roly Perera, Joseph Bond, Cristina David, Andrew McNutt, Alfonso Piscitelli, ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Programming for the Planet
Keyframer: A Design Probe for Exploring LLM Assistance in 2D Animation Design: Tiffany Tseng, Ruijia Cheng, Andrew McNutt, Jeffrey Nichols, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centered Computing (VL/HCC) — Short Papers
Buckaroo: A Direct Manipulation Visual Data Wrangler: Annabelle Warner, Andrew McNutt, Paul Rosen, El Kindi Rezig, Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (Demo)
Critical Data Visualization—Part I/II: Georgia Panagiotidou, Andrew McNutt, Derya Akbaba, Nicole Hengesbach, Miriah Meyer, Computer Graphics & Applications
ReVISitPy: Python Bindings for the reVISit Study Framework: Hilson Shrestha, Jack Wilburn, Brian Bollen, Andrew McNutt, Alexander Lex, Lane Harrison, Proceedings of the Eurographics Conference on Visualization “EuroVis” - Posters
Accessible Text Descriptions for UpSet Plots: Andrew McNutt, Maggie K McCracken, Ishrat Jahan Eliza, Daniel Hajas, Jake Wagoner, Nate Lanza, Jack Wilburn, Sarah Creem-Regehr, Alexander Lex, Computer Graphics Forum (EuroVis)
Linting is People! Exploring the Potential of Human Computation as a Sociotechnical Linter of Data Visualizations: Anamaria Crisan, Andrew McNutt, Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (alt.chi)
Slowness, Politics, and Joy: Values That Guide Technology Choices in Creative Coding Classrooms: Andrew McNutt, Sam Cohen, Ravi Chugh, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
Mixing Linters with GUIs: A Color Palette Design Probe: Andrew McNutt, Maureen C. Stone, Jeffrey Heer, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
What Can Interactive Visualization do for Participatory Budgeting in Chicago?: Alex Kale, Danni Liu, Maria Gabriela Ayala, Harper Schwab, Andrew McNutt, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Considering Visualization Example Galleries: Junran Yang, Andrew McNutt, Leilani Battle, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centered Computing (VL/HCC)
How Do Data Analysts Respond to AI Assistance? A Wizard-of-Oz Study: Ken Gu, Madeleine Grunde-McLaughlin, Andrew McNutt, Jeffrey Heer, Tim Althoff, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
Only YOU Can Make IEEE VIS Environmentally Sustainable: Elsie Lee-Robbins, Andrew McNutt, alt.vis
Metrics-Based Evaluation and Comparison of Visualization Notations: Nicolas Kruchten, Andrew McNutt, Michael J. McGuffin, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Projectional Editors for JSON-Based DSLs: Andrew McNutt, Ravi Chugh, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centered Computing (VL/HCC)
Understanding and Enhancing JSON-based DSL Interfaces for Visualization: Andrew McNutt (advised by Ravi Chugh), Ph.D. Thesis
Doom or Deliciousness: Challenges and Opportunities for Visualization in the Age of Generative Models: Victor Schetinger, Sara Di Bartolomeo, Mennatallah El-Assady, Andrew McNutt, Matthias Miller, João Paulo Apolinário Passos, Jane L. Adams, Computer Graphics Forum (EuroVis)
On the Design of AI-powered Code Assistants for Notebooks: Andrew McNutt, Chenglong Wang, Rob DeLine, Steven M. Drucker, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
A Study of Editor Features in a Creative Coding Classroom: Andrew McNutt, Anton Outkine, Ravi Chugh, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
No Grammar to Rule Them All: A Survey of JSON-Style DSLs for Visualization: Andrew McNutt, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Goethe and Candolle: National forms of scientific writing?: Agatha Seo-Hyun Kim, Andrew McNutt , Theory in Biosciences
Explaining Why: How Instructions and User Interfaces Impact Annotator Rationales When Labeling Text Data: Jamar L. Sullivan, Will Brackenbury, Andrew McNutt, Kevin Bryson, Kwam Byll, Yuxin Chen, Michael Littman, Chenhao Tan, Blase Ur, Proceedings of the North American Association of Computational Linguistics (NAACL)
Visualization for Villainy: Andrew McNutt, Lilian Huang, Kathryn Koenig, alt.vis
KondoCloud: Improving Information Management in Cloud Storage via Recommendations Based on File Similarity: Will Brackenbury, Andrew McNutt, Kyle Chard, Aaron Elmore, Blase Ur, ACM Symposium on User Interface Systems and Technologies
On The Potential of Zines as a Medium for Visualization: Andrew McNutt, Proceedings of IEEE VIS (Short Papers)
What are Table Cartograms Good for Anyway? An Algebraic Analysis: Andrew McNutt, Computer Graphics Forum (EuroVis)
Integrated Visualization Editing via Parameterized Declarative Templates: Andrew McNutt, Ravi Chugh, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
Supporting Expert Close Analysis of Historical Scientific Writings: A Case Study for Near-by Reading: Andrew McNutt, Agatha Seo-Hyun Kim, Sergio Elahi, Kazutaka Takahashi, Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH)
A Minimally Constrained Optimization Algorithm for Table Cartograms: Andrew McNutt, Gordon Kindlmann, IEEE InfoVis Posters
Surfacing Visualization Mirages: Andrew McNutt, Gordon Kindlmann, Michael Correll, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (SIGCHI)
Divining Insights: Visual Analytics Through Cartomancy: Andrew McNutt, Anamaria Crisan, Michael Correll, Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (alt.chi)
Design and Analysis of Table Cartograms: Simultaneous Multipurpose Tabular Area-encoding Displays: Andrew McNutt (Advised by Gordon Kindlmann), Masters thesis
Textual Analysis & Comparison National Forms of Scientific Texts: Goethe + de Candolle: Agatha Seo-Hyun Kim, Andrew McNutt, Sergio Elahi, Kazutaka Takahashi, Robert J Richards, MindBytes Research Symposium
Improving the Scalability of Interactive Visualization Systems for Exploring Threaded Conversations: Andrew McNutt, Gordon Kindlmann, Proceedings of the Eurographics Conference on Visualization “EuroVis” - Posters
Linting for Visualization: Towards a Practical Automated Visualization Guidance System: Andrew McNutt, Gordon Kindlmann, IEEE VIS Workshop on Creation, Curation, Critique and Conditioning of Principles and Guidelines in Visualization (VisGuides)
Data Mining and Computational Modeling of High-Throughput Screening Datasets: Sean Ekins, Alex M. Clark, Krishna Dole, Kellan Gregory, Andrew McNutt, Anna Coulon Spektor, Charlie Weatherall, Nadia K Litterman, Barry A Bunin, Reporter Gene Assays
The Schrodinger-Newton System with Self-field Coupling: Joel Franklin, Youdan Guo, Andrew McNutt, Allison Morgan, Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity
Open source Bayesian models. 1. Application to ADME/Tox and drug discovery datasets: Alex M. Clark, Krishna Dole, Anna Coulon-Spektor, Andrew McNutt, George Grass, Joel S. Freundlich, Robert C. Reynolds, Sean Ekins, Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
Nonequivalent Lagrangian Mechanics: Andrew McNutt (Advised by Nelia Mann), Undergraduate thesis